


To Start Anew

by GrapieBee



Series: It Takes A Village [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And it would work just fine, M/M, Missing Scene, They just love each other and that’s what touched my heart, You could read this interaction as platonic or romantic love, either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrapieBee/pseuds/GrapieBee
Summary: To start with, Aziraphale accepted Crowley’s invitation to stay the night at his flat.





	To Start Anew

To start with, Aziraphale accepted Crowley’s invitation to stay the night at his apartment. It had been a near thing, him refusing to meet Crowley in the middle yet again.

But, in the wake of the foundations of his faith (in all he had been made for and believed in) being shaken, Aziraphale found that he did not want to be alone. Not just anyone’s company would be right for him; not that night, when he felt spent to his very core and his heart felt too raw to even think about touching.

On the bus back to London, Aziraphale and Crowley sat nearly flush with one another, just centimeters apart. They stayed like this for the better part of a half hour, passing the bottle of red back and forth between them.

“You can still say no, if you want. We could, I don’t know, find a bed and breakfast for you to stay in, if you’d like? Half the time, they only decorate those sorts of places with tea cozies and hand-crafted doilies. You’d fit right in with your tartan, angel.”

Aziraphale stilled himself, the neck of the wine bottle part way raised to his mouth, and carefully looked to his counterpart. Crowley had shifted his gaze out the window, into the nothingness of the night outside their little space of tranquility. Aziraphale finished raising the bottle to his lips and took a deep drink of wine, truly savoring its subtle notes. 

To think, this could have all been gone. 

No more bus drivers that take you all the way back to London and not know why. No more bottles of wine to share with your dearest friend. No more little restaurants where the waitstaff know you by name. No parades celebrating love in all forms. 

No more Bently. No more ‘Best of Queen’ thudding in his chest. No more lunches and dinners and coffees and teas.

No more Crowley.

Looking at him now, Aziraphale can see the exhaustion in every line of his soot smudged face. He’d only heard the exaggerated version of Crowley’s trip to the airbase[*], but the more he looked, the more he saw how keeping his car and corporeal form together had drained the poor dear. Ash still clung to his red hair, the longer pieces in the front holding a gentle wave to the strands. Carefully, Aziraphale reached up with his free hand and pulled the flecks of ash away from Crowley’s hairline. Neither of them breathed for a moment as Aziraphale continued to pull bits of dirt and grime from his face.

[*The dramatics of which had only been played up for the two humans still in their company as they caught a ride in Dick Turpin to the bus bench. Maybe it had also been a little bit about trying to get the angel to actually relax for the first time in eleven years, but Crowley would neither confirm nor deny that.]

Here they were, two beings older than the Earth itself, trying to find the right words to say to one another. Words that desperately needed to be found, words that desperately needed to be said.

And yet, Crowley had still given Aziraphale an out. A socially acceptable way to sidestep whatever conversation waited for them in Crowley’s flat, if he so chose to.

He really was incredible, this demon who so wholly carried his heart and didn’t even know it.

“I think, my dear, that I’m quite done denying myself the truth about what’s important to me.” He punctuated the answer by gently, carefully, moving his free hand from the demons hair to rest it against his nearest hand, and waited.

Crowley had given him an out. Aziraphale would offer him the same courtesy. He would stay near enough for him to grab the offered hand, but keep the touch light enough to pull away if needed.

They were on a precipice now, the pair of them-

But before he could even finish the thought, Crowley had flipped the hand Aziraphale’s own hovered over and laced their fingers together, as easily as if he had done it thousands of times before. Aziraphale’s eyes pricked with tears, just ever so slightly, because now he knew what a fool he was, too. 

There, right under his palm, thrumming along with the beat of Crowley’s heart, was the demon’s love for him.

Gentle and warm and older than any other love had ever gotten the chance to be, save for Her own love of creation. It was a canyon, made deep and beautiful with patience and so,  _ so  _ much time. It might have even been there since the first time they met, the angel realized. No wonder he’d never picked up on it until it was  _ literally _ handed to him.

“I didn’t know.Thank you for waiting for me to catch up, my dear.”

“Ngk. Sure. Please, let’s just…”Crowley pulled one of his near impossibly long legs up to his chest, pointedly kept his gaze out the window, and gently squeezed Aziraphale’s hand.

Aziraphale knew, had probably known for much,  _ much  _ longer than he would ever admit to, but this was what he had been fighting for. In every little misdirection he gave to his superiors, in every little awful gut feeling he’d had when he thought about there being no more humans. 

Because it wasn’t just the Earth he had feared the ruin of. 

It wasn’t just bus drivers that take you all the way back to London and not know why that made the planet his Home. Not the bottles of wine to share with your dearest friend. Not the little restaurants where the waitstaff know you by name. Not the parades celebrating love in all forms. 

It wasn’t just the Bently or the music or the food.

It was Crowley that made the Earth his Home.

And it would take more than the masses of both the Host and the Horde to ever make him let go of that Truth again.

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand back in that silent promise.

They rode the rest of the way to the flat in a comfortable silence, an angel and a demon, to start anew.


End file.
